You always want to hear the backstory, don't you, about the worst of the hair-brained schemes that either line the pockets or the political fortunes of local county commissioners in Florida. The only agency to support one such scheme-- to allow off-road vehicles in the Everglades-- was the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission whose chairman is Rodney Barreto; a land speculator and board member of US Century Bank. Every other agency (including Collier County's own planning department, ignored by the county commissioners) had issued serious objections to the plan for putting rutting, mudding vehicles in the middle of the threatened Everglades.
Putting off road vehicles in the middle of the Everglades required a vote by county commissioners to change Collier County's comprehensive master plan. The application, leading to the vote, came from Pepe Diaz and the Miami-Dade county commission who were willing to convert the old Everglades jetport site in the middle of the Everglades into a park to spin and churn and blast the quiet. The Collier County Commission-- that initially approved the reckless scheme last spring-- was to make its final vote tomorrow. Last night the MIami-Dade county commission quietly withdrew its application. Why?
It would be interesting to know the entire answer. Is it possible the Miami-Dade and Collier County Commissions came to their senses? I attended the January county commission meeting in Collier where the scheme was first unveiled and made an impassioned plea. Do you think the county commissioners listened to me? (I wrote about that experience for Counterpunch. It was titled, "Fat Tires in the Everglades: A New Place to Ride". You can read it, here.)
No, as much as I would like to take credit on behalf of Sierra Club, or Friends of the Everglades where I am conservation chair, or Tropical Audubon Society, my guess is that the upcoming election was a greater influence on the county commissioners' tactical retreat than the gathering of environmental groups that were girding for a new battle over the jetport that Marjory Stoneman Douglas had fought over in the 1960's, engaging Congress and a president.
For one, the Collier County amendment to its master plan would have been poster child for Florida Hometown Democracy, Amendment 4, on the November ballot. The mutual hand washing by Miami-Dade and Collier county commissioners to exploit the threatened Everglades would eventually have been overturned in court. It would have been a costly diversion and exactly the kind of rabbit hole that lobbyists and insiders thrill to chase civic groups and activists down; an example of misdirection the late Wade Hopping -- Tallahassee lobbyist-- loved to promote. But it would also have highlighted exactly why voters need to take back control of outrageous, irresponsible land use decisions that county commissioners often rubber-stamp to accommodate land speculators whose power is rooted in campaign contributions. Handing Florida Hometown Democracy supporters a cause celebre could not have been judged, a good idea.
Then, under the main tent, there is the US Senate race between Gov. Charlie Crist and GOP challenger Marco Rubio. One of the clearest-- and least reported-- areas of conflict between Crist and the GOP, his former party, is the area of growth management. This issue is the perennial focus of GOP ire: how rules governing growth inhibit economic development, blah blah. Under Crist, the Miami-Dade county commission applications (often led by Pepe Diaz) to push development outside the Urban Development Boundary in Miami-Dade have drawn sharp criticism from the state agency, the Department of Community Affairs. The GOP legislature would love to find a way to decapitate the agency, and despite the worst housing crash in a century triggered by so much crappy, fetid overdevelopment in suburbs, the DCA under Gov. Crist has been a more reliable ally of taxpayers and citizens than county commissions.
Did the Collier County commission and Pepe Diaz in Miami-Dade suddenly wake one morning and realize that their plan to put gas guzzling, buzzing machines in the middle of the Everglades was bad policy, supported by Rodney Barreto, and bad politics, giving energy to Charlie Crist? Or, did they just do the right thing, because it was the right thing to do?
1 comment:
They didn't want to give Crist wings.
Post a Comment